Non-market institutions and crime in US counties: Hayek v. Polanyi

Roland Zullo

Review of Social Economy, 2021, vol. 79, issue 2, 310-332

Abstract: Karl Polanyi’s The great transformation emphasized the importance of non-market institutions for social equity and stability. In that same era, Friedrich Hayek postulated in The road to serfdom that superior economies were market-based and featured minimal government. I compare these worldviews in relation to property and violent crime. Using US county data, change in crime is modeled as a function of economic structure, economic conditions, and demographics. Consistent with Polanyi, the size of the public sector in the economy negatively associates with crime. Within the public sector, education is a critical crime-reducing function, more so than law enforcement. Industry diversity is positively associated with crime, contrary to Hayek. Manufacturing equates with lower crime and the size of the private non-profit sector is unrelated to crime. Overall the results favor Polanyi’s assertion that non-market institutions are necessary to counter the harsh outcomes arising from market economic systems.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00346764.2019.1663909 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:79:y:2021:i:2:p:310-332

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RRSE20

DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2019.1663909

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Social Economy is currently edited by Wilfred Dolfsma and John Davis

More articles in Review of Social Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().